April 2012.
I made it! I literally moon-walked my way out of my last chemo treatment. I consider myself pretty resilient but seriously, the last four months nearly took me down.I fought it hard, all the way through. I was not going to give in to cancer. Now I wonder if it was the best approach. Would it have been better to relinquish control and just let it all happen? My control freak tendencies would not have allowed it. Fight through it and win. There is no other option. I remember a moment when Carl looked at me and said “Just allow yourself to be a cancer patient.” My thought was that if I stop trying to be in control, the cancer wins. I had to fight - for my family, for my daughter, for my life.
I am a shell of my former self. Physically, I am different and while my body will recover, mentally I will never be the same. I have not been able to figure out how to ease the fear. How do I know if my cancer is gone? Everything I read tells me that if it comes back, it’s bad. The fear takes over my thoughts. I lose sleep and when I am sleeping, my dreams are filled with what ifs. I look in the mirror and see a puffy face that has aged ten years in six months. My peach-fuzz hair is starting to sprout and is growing in mostly grey. My eyebrows grew back relatively quickly, but my eyelashes are another story. It’s comical to realize that I had zero perception of losing them. By the end of chemo, I had two lashes on each eye and yet still felt the need to apply mascara.
The Agency tells me that it’s going to take at least a year to start feeling like myself again. Wow, those chemicals really do a number on your whole body and the effects are lasting. Interesting that they don’t tell you that small fact before you start. I still believe that I chose the best options to eradicate those rogue cells and I keep that belief in the forefront of my mind every day as I go through this planned protocol. I have to believe that once this is all behind me, I am free and clear. Hope.
Next is six weeks of daily radiation, by myself, behind a steel door. After finishing chemo, I return to work full time. The worst is behind me. Radiation feels like a cakewalk compared to chemo. The process is fairly simple. Once they mark you with micro tattoos and set up your radiation measurements, you are ready to go. I head into The Agency and change into my gown. The technicians take me into the room, get me settled and set up the machine. Getting radiation is like having an X-ray without the protective lead vest. The alarming part is when the technologists run from the room and close you in with a heavy, steel door and the light turns on to alert people that radiation is in progress and whatever you do, DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR. Suddenly, I get a “NO” feeling. Why is it important to wear a lead vest when you get an X-ray and yet with cancer, you don’t need to be protected? It never occurred to me that I could be doing serious damage to my body. I simply believed in the treatments. After all, we were using these protocols every single day on cancer patients. It must work.
Each day, during my break, I head over to The Agency for my ten minute dose of radiation. For the most part, I tolerate the sessions pretty well. My skin burns and is very sensitive to touch and to the shower, but otherwise, I am starting to feel more normal. Or I should say, my new normal. I am tired. Is it the treatments or is it the mental shenanigans going on in my head that are wearing me out? Probably both.
I can see my finish line. I. AM. ALMOST. THERE.
- Kim